Tributes to the Dark Elves:
Inside the Dark Forest, a medley of small human towns and cities lay outside Human Empire's control in the form of a Duchy. As fortune would have it, it was separated from the larger human lands by a huge swath of Monstergirl Empire territory, also known as the Reik The Duchy was too distant and liberal for the theocracy of the Human Empire to absorb without a bloody war, and sadly was surrounded by Dark Elven holdings all around.
The succubus empress hated war, having passed from a world plagued by it and taking over the charge of the non-human sentient species. She had killed the last Monster Lord and changed the "liminal" species, also known as monsters, to females, so she had instructed the dark-elven queen to avoid war and solve the issue in another way. The dark elves, vicious as they are, could have defied her and conquered the duchy by force, had they been stuck in the past.
So the duchy was forced to be a tributary.
The dark elves would receive tribute from the human duchy every year: advanced tools, textiles, and complex goods.
However, being what they are, the dark elven queendom would also extract a second type of tribute.
Slaves.
The dark elves' underground city Chel'drai needed human slaves. Men as "lovers" and occasional servants, women as servants, and occasional lovers. The dark elves had dwarven women as slaves as well but said slaves, being monsters like the Svartalf themselves also needed human essence and were good only for digging and mining.
Hearing that her people will be harvested and taken underground to toil for her overlords, the duchess' pleaded for mercy in tears, rarely shed by a noblewoman of her status for lowly peasants. Such a display softened the dark-elven queen's gentle heart(who herself had given birth to a daughter just last month), and with misty eyes, agreed to a compromise.
The tribute quota would limit itself to the duchy's criminals and poor volunteers first. If the quota wasn't met, the dark elves' warrior women and merchants would pick through families for suitable youths, avoiding force when necessary: one youth per family until the quota was satisfied. Moreover, the dark elves would maintain a small embassy on the city's outskirts to observe and monitor human families for susceptibility to seduction, as well as accept human volunteers into slavery for guaranteed food and shelter, as rare as it may be (but happened anyway) due to poverty.
As a sign of the Dark Elven Queen's merciful dominance rule over the human duchy, the tribute collectors would, in return, bring exotic medicines to human lands deemed too heretical and promise help in famines and disease, allowing her people to be fruitful and multiply as much as possible. Furthermore, a dark-elven maid would be given to the Duchess as her servant and wetnurse for her babies, who would, in turn, send her oldest son to be married to the oldest dark-elven princess for closer relations, and a future peaceful merger.
The tribute collectors would be mostly the youngest Svartalf from the overcrowded subterranean city led by the most experienced Svartalvar and one surface dark elf guide. This was to help the young ones see humans up close in their natural habitat and to gain experience in slave handling. Of course, it was expected of some young dark elves to settle on the surface to get rid of excess population, whether marriage with humans, surface residence, or even becoming slaves themselves in surface monster cities, allowing some poor or submissive elflings to support their families back home.
It was Autumn.
The tribute was due.
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DARK ELVEN TRADE OUTPOST "SSINRIG"
The tribute party was to have their last night of rest before getting to work in human lands. Beautiful, curvaceous, black-skinned, platinum-white-haired beauties emerged from the cave entrance in a long line, bearing weapons, backpacks, and traveling gear in a loose line, eyes widening in wonder at the surface. The atmosphere was joyous, the monster girls chatting with each other about their great adventure after getting a night's party. The dark elf younglings had all their hair made for the trip, bound in beautiful patterns, and colorful beads added for fun, and wearing their most beautiful, lewd armor and clothes for showing off and enjoyment. Nearly all of them wore sets of armor, leather bottoms being little more than sexy thongs with silvery edges and protection runes around the pelvis. Some wore functional yet revealing plate mails, and skimpy wizard robes, the youngest ones even adorning their clothes with badges of cute, fuzzy animal faces sewn into the fabrics.
The older members leading the expedition wore more conservative, dour armor suits and looked grim. Inwardly, they were cringing at the thought of leading these younglings to the surface who treated it like a fun adventure.
But Chel'drai was overcrowded this century: some population had to be sent aboveground for a considerable amount of time until their dwarven slaves, monstergirls subjugated below, could dig up more free land. Worse, all monstergirls needed human men to breed with and survive, and the dwarven slave women were losing productivity along with their mistresses. Bereft of human essence -semen, breath, sweat, colloquially known as "Chi"-, even other monstergirl slaves the Svartalvar had were becoming weak and sickly.
"It's my first time on the surface!" One young dark elven female quipped, almost skipping, eyes squinted at the sun and her huge ears sinking in alarm at the sudden glare. She didn't think the sun would be such a bright ball of light. "So these humans will give up slaves without a fight?"
"Yes", replied her friend who was just one year her senior, "We have a deal with them. We take the criminals, debtors, some willing, or the...umm..." She scratched her pointy ear, almond eyes squinting as she tried to formulate her thoughts, "...least resisting ones." It was difficult to focus: fragrant flowers were everywhere!
"Some won't resist?" The youngest amongst them quipped, twirling her wicked-looking, purple-silvery dagger in one hand, an arrogant saunter marking her inexperience and over-enthusiasm. "They volunteer?"
"Well, we have slavery among us, don't we? Some of our kin are submissives..." Her friend tried to rationalize, as the group's only wizard, an older dark elf turned her head to address them. She had been busy trying to examine surface mushrooms on trees:
"Humans are natural slaves, fit for disciplined, mundane labor and breeding. Some of them will inevitably accept their fate. Our job is to make sure they get picked most so the rest won't go feral like last century." She meant the Lescatian Crusades that nearly exterminated monstergirls in the West.
"Beats fighting and killing." Another dark elf agreed, sighing. "I love humans, they make the best slaves but we need more. Not many human men laid with our human women this decade... Even their kids are cute and fun to play with!" Her smile widened, pearly teeth gleaming brighter than her hair. "I am saving up to get a human man! Maybe a girl for a house servant."
"You are getting your own house?" Her friend blinked, who was just lost in the fascination of the beauty of the surface woods before she heard her friend's aspirations for a new home.
"Yeah!" The young drowling grinned, her voice full of hope and confidence. "I'm moving out of my mother's mansion to the surface. I know it's a big house... but I want to leave Chel'drai. The other mamono on the surface have so much to see. Not just slaves: humans that don't mind seeing us, talking to us. Other races don't hate us anymore! At least, that much."
"You think they'll be O.K with you living on the surface with slaves?" Her friend had used the new human idiom instead of "alright"; the airheaded dark elven cuties were infected with the virus of culture already... To speak nothing of the fact they were speaking Common rather than the flowery Svartalf tongue, their grandmothers would throw fits!
"Some won't mind. I heard of a human city that has allowed slavery and allows monstergirl residence." She shrugged. "I heard some humans even volunteer! Imagine a household with my husband, some female bedmates for spicier nights...maids...Exotic imports...Surface spices, salads, and fruits at every meal and sunbathing with all my slaves...A girl can dream..." She sighed. "If I eat another mushroom bread or drink mushroom beer, I'll kill myself!"
"The tributes go to the slave market though..." Her friend replied, looking at a vendor, a little goblin girl selling dried surface fruits in colorful bundles. "You have to be a sergeant at least to take your first pick of a slave with discount. Otherwise, you pay the full price or buy yourself *after* the Tribute March."
They stood before the bathhouse, dozens of young, enthusiastic dark elves with twinkles in their eyes, hope for the future, and empty cages.
And hunger for human slaves, of course.